From time to time, I work in a travel bookstore. In the course of my many years of faithful (and sometimes not so faithful) employment there, I've not only learned a great deal about travel, but about travelers. People who one day decide to leave their physical homes for the lure of other locales. Rather than separate this curious crowd into stereotyped subsections, I'll refrain from the obvious. In fact, instead of making statements, I'll ask a few questions.
1. Why are you leaving this country if you are doing so in the hope and expectation of finding it abroad?
2. For the tour-takers: Is this an issue of fear? Anxiety? Obsessive American efficiency? Do you really trust yourself so little that you choose to depend on pre-planned cultural exchange and leisure activity?
3. Do you really think it a good idea, and a responsible one, to know nothing of that native language? Even if your accent is laughable, attempts are respectable. I promise.
4. Does planning ahead kill your soul?
Okay. I've exhausted my abilities to be polite on this subject. Needless to say, I am baffled by the variety of travel-buffoons I regularly assist and advise. One and a half weeks is not enough time to order and receive a map of Stuttgart, Ma'am.
Turning to something slightly less negative, I am still left with a question; the main one; the most important.
Why do we travel, and is travel something positive?
As the daughter of an intrepid and miniature jet-setter/buckaneering anthropology professor, this is an issue I have considered for a good half of my life. The anthropologist in my mother often responds to this query with a resounding "no." Those people who live in the Amazon away from illustrious modernities like iPods and milk frothers probably want to be left alone. They might not appreciate the eco and anthro-tourism that brings with it, yes, American dollars, but English, crucifixes, and digital cameras as well.
This is a far-fetched example and one that seems a little false to me, as I've never been to the Amazon, nor met with an indigenous tribe before. Let's bring this issue a little closer to home and brain:
Last summer I went to France. Not the most original travel destination, I concede, but one of interest. Primarily because up until I was coerced into taking French in college, I had literally no interest in the country or its culture. Some little girls grow up dreaming of their fling with the Eiffel Tower. The stars in their eyes are actually croissants encrusted in Versaille-style bling. I grew up fascinated by the mechanics of the Venetian gondola; my heart bloomed when I met Italy. So my interaction with France and Paris in particular was not what I would've called "impassioned." I had a sense of detachment throughout the three weeks we spent there, and with that, I think, a true ability to find wonder. I had no expectations, and therefore, I had an openness, a space, to be dazzled. I don't mean this "post" to be an ode to France. I merely want to be honest in my approach.
Several things struck me about Paris:
1. There were cops on rollerblades. Oh. My. God.
2. Even the ugly people there are beautiful.
3. Paris is full of Parisians. Parisians speak French.
Number Three might seem a tad obvious, I realize. But perhaps it shouldn't.
As one of the world's most popular tourist destinations, Paris has not given itself up to the foreigners that crowd its streets. Its residents still seem to outnumber its visitors; its residents speak their own language. You will hear more French spoken than English or any other language. This, considering the hordes of be-shorted Texans in Charles De Gaulle Airport, is a bloody miracle.
Sniff condescendingly at France's so-called snobbery as you will. Let's move to their Mediterranean neighbor, Italy, and see how she fares on this subject.
As stated above, I had a minor childhood obsession with Venezia. A childhood obsession that has grown, since the impressionable age of thirteen, into an adult passion. I have visited Venice four times in the last ten years and each of those times I have found myself moved to tears upon arriving from the train station. There's probably nothing normal about that, but what I mean to state is that my love of Venice and Italy is rich; it is emotional and it is completely biased. So when I got there this last March and noticed a change of character in the city, it hurt me. It cut me deep. Walking across the Accademia Bridge, I jostled against the usual tourists taking pictures of the canal. But it only took me a second to realize that so numerous were the tourists and so little the space, they were actually taking pictures of each other. Tourists taking pictures of tourists taking pictures. I hoped I would find that this would be an isolated incident, an unfortunate circumstance. But it wasn't. Venice, for the first time in my perception, had become a playground, a movie set, a shell. A place to impose experience and spirit. Merely a beautiful background. And those hungry tourists with their cameras and their shouting and their laughter were neither giving the city their respect nor any part of themselves. With each careless click of their shutter, they were taking. Grabbing. Pillaging.
Of course this is one clearly subjective interpretation of modern tourism, and probably (to be frank) a criticism of American culture. Perhaps Venice has always been a space emptied of its own character and I've been too enraptured in my own projects of it to notice. But the question remains:
Can travel be responsible? Can travel be truly an exchange?
I dare to write to this blog, and indeed to go on this adventure, in the perhaps naïve opinion that we are capable of giving of ourselves and receiving from others in a productive way.
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